"We don't have a widespread reliance on drugs that are rated to be of high importance in human medicine."

But Professor of infectious diseases at Melbourne's Austin Hospital, Lindsay Grayson said the use of drugs like ceftiofur in animals presents a serious risk of antibiotic resistance developing.

"That's in the same class of penicillin like antibiotic that many human antibiotics are in," he said.

"When an e coli or a bowel organism becomes resistant to ceftiofur it will be resistant to all the penicillin like drugs that we would want to use to treat you say if you had pneumonia or if you had a ruptured bowel."

The committee considers that more investigation of use of antibiotics for prophylactic use or therapeutic use is required.

More monitoring and regulation

Industry claims of low antibiotic use are difficult to verify as as there are currently no mandatory mechanisms or legal frameworks to collect detailed information on the usage in different animal species.

Chemical companies provide the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority with voluntary statistics on the amount of antibiotics sold. The APVMA claims this information serves as a useful proxy for the amount of antibiotics used but it hasn't released this data since 2003. One of the committee's recommendations is that this data be immediately released and published annually.

"Companies provide the data to the APVMA on a voluntary basis, and the data are complex, so we have needed to spend time ensuring that all figures provided by the companies were accurate and comparable," he said.

But Dr Di Natale says the delays in releasing this information are unacceptable.

"It needs a co-ordinated government response and yet we've got government agencies who haven't done enough to make it clear about what antibiotic use is going on," he said.

There have also been calls for increased resources to be put behind the regulator to restrict the use of antibiotics in Australia.

Researcher at The Australia Institute, Kerry Tucker, says her research shows clear evidence the APVMA was pressured into removing limitations on a drug called Virginiamycin through a legal challenge by its manufacturer Phibro.

"Information received through freedom of information requests showed that the Australian Government and regulator felt out-gunned by that pharmaceutical company," she said.

"They weren't able to successfully follow through that legal challenge but instead went to mediation."

"It shouldn't be the case that their decisions are overruled by the resources and power of multinational companies."

Better testing for imported food

Greens Senator Dr Richard Di Natale says there is also a need for better monitoring of food coming into the country. There is currently no testing for superbugs on imported food and only limited testing for antibiotics.

In the case of imported raw seafood, five per cent is tested for antibiotic residues. Food Standards Australia and New Zealand says of the shipments tested in 2012 only 4 per cent were found to contain banned antibiotics.

But Dr Di Natale says even this small amount is unacceptable.

"Four per cent of product amounts to many many tonnes of imported seafood and other animal products that have antibiotic residues on them," he said.

"That means one in twenty five times you buy imported sea food, you're not just getting seafood, you're getting a dose of antibiotics at the same time."

But Professor Lindsay Grayson agrees that the threat from imported food is significant. However World Trade Organisation legislation prevents Australia placing greater regulation on imported food than it does on its own products.

"It's absolutely imperative that any imported foods are subject to the same or greater scrutiny for resistance and antibiotic residues," Prof Grayson said.

"Once we get the Australian standards in place then it will be obvious that the imported foods will have to be tested to the same degree."